Why I ❤️ Hacktoberfest

I have been participating in hacktoberfest for 3 years now and I just want to share a super short explanation of why I get so excited every year for this event. In one word it's:

Community

The first year I was trying to get into open source. So I joined hacktoberfest and started rifling thought #hacktoberfest tagged issues. To my surprise it felt way more fulfilling to know that what I was doing was adding value to so many other peoples lives. The code that I was writing wasn't for me, it was for everyone and that was so empowering!

The second year I was now running a React Meetup and we had the chance to host an event. It was inspiring to see all the people who were interested in similar things in one room - coding!

I also started my own repo last year to play around with the text-to-speech api in browsers https://github.com/ericadamski/alphabet-keys. It led me to write something I thought my kids would have fun with. Now it excites me every time I see a new comment on an issue or a new pull request. Just knowing that someone gets to leave a part of who they are in this code - it makes me giddy!

Also free T-Shirt! 🤤 I cannot leave this out! The shirts are amazing.

Hacktoberfest is such an amazing event that makes the global coding community feel like a tight group of like minded individuals trying to make the world a better place. I ❤️ Hacktoberfest!

Thank Eric. This year, I was finally able to experience, what you term, 'Community'. I am really enjoying it, and hopefully I will be able to create a project next year to help other newbies, like me, to this amazing platform.

Yes, it is sooo amazing. Getting PRs basically with the exception of a few years ago two times maybe for the first time. Especially as I really worked so many times after work and on weekends on a project I really really love.